Office of the Historian

153. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, April 15, 1965, 2:45 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • Cambodia

PARTICIPANTS

  • US
    • Secretary of State Rusk
    • Assistant Secretary Tyler
  • UK
    • Prime Minister Harold Wilson
    • Minister of State George Thomson
    • Ambassador Sir Patrick Dean
    • Minister of Embassy Michael Stewart
    • Secretary of Cabinet Sir Burke Trend
    • Private Secy to the PM Oliver Wright

The Secretary told the Prime Minister that we wanted to move forward. We must avoid having a conference which would fall on its face, and getting Sihanouk mad. He thought that Gordon Walker might explore what would satisfy Sihanouk. If Sihanouk was thinking of endorsement of the French treaties then this would upset Thailand and South Vietnam. Another possibility was that the co-chairmen might invite members of the 1954 Geneva conference for discussions at high official level.

The Prime Minister commented that this would be “a kind of pre-conference conference.” The Secretary said he thought we faced serious difficulties in a Cambodian conference. We must avoid allowing things to blow up over strictly Cambodian problems. He said a third possibility might be a straight acceptance of the Russian invitation.

The Prime Minister speculated that it might be possible to combine something by pulling various elements together. The Secretary said we wanted to avoid saying no to the Russian invitation. The Prime Minister said that we did not know if the Russians are moving in cahoots with Peiping and Hanoi, or by themselves. The Secretary said the thought that a door to a possible conference on the Vietnamese question would be easier through Cambodia than through Laos or Vietnam itself. He wanted to assure the Prime Minister that we were trying to do our best not to say no to the Russian invitation. We would be in touch with the Prime Minister through the British Ambassador in Washington within 24 hours.

The Prime Minister said he wanted to keep the door open. He thought that maybe a top level ambassadorial group in Geneva could be [Page 345] convened. The Secretary said that if the going in South Vietnam were to get rougher in the next few weeks, there might be an advantage in having a conference already in being. He said we had the impression that the Russians were not too happy about extending an invitation. The Prime Minister said that HMG was worried about this too. He felt that we really must move and not lose the present opportunity. He wondered whether HMG could try to do anything useful through the two co-chairmen. The Secretary said that we would be interested in the replies to the appeal of the 17 nations and attached importance to this. We would, so to speak, paste the replies up on the wall and put red circles around the elements which might be useful to us. The Secretary also mentioned the expected reply from Souphanouvong,2 which might constitute a possible third channel.

  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 27–14 CAMB. Secret. Drafted by Tyler and approved in S on April 27. The meeting took place at the White House.↩
  2. Prince Souphanouvong, Deputy Prime Minister of Laos and leader of the Pathet Lao.↩